(D)raining
The shift from late summer to early autumn has always seemed more like a feeling than a season — this year, especially so, as I recently moved from the soupy humidity of Toronto to the cooler, fir-scented air of Vancouver. This transition has felt natural, hopeful, potent, though dappled with shadows of what-now: what will I do with the extra time? How will I continue to challenge myself, faced with an openness that I haven’t experienced for years? What structures must I put in place to avoid sinking into complacency?
Big questions, yes, but I am lucky to have this bit of in-between time to sit with them, instead of diving into problem-solving mode, as I am wont to do. For now, I am leaning into a bit of sentimentality: remembering my last thunder-stormed bike ride in my home city, how the creeping thunderclouds always made me pedal faster, the first few drops an annoyance, quickly shifting into the exhilaration of acceptance. How good it feels to be carried by gusts, drenched, eyes barely able to blink away the fat raindrops!
So here: a moment of thanks for being caught in the rain with nowhere to be but in the storm.
I plow through humidity -
motion languid, leaden.
Pedals slow in soupy heat,
silent street a greenhouse.
The city edged in green:
pavements, moss-lined,
shocked by humidity.
Like a plant starved for water
my xylem tips
reach for raindrops.
Then -
sudden sky release:
once sullen shoots,
their tidy bulbs drooping,
rush to rise from tangled roots.
Caught in this deluge,
I laugh, buoyant,
blinking rivulets.
Barely seeing, I pedal faster as
my wheels churn diamonds -
pinpricks of glittering light.
Fenders catch chains of
mud-hued water
tracing my wake.
This stolen shower
brings
relief
from heaving air
stale like morning breath.
As suddenly as it started,
rain relents:
unbearable stillness
a sheen of city skin.
Humidity hits concrete,
sealing in summer’s damp,
as flowers bow their heads,
gazes turned groundward.
Resigned to the cycle of
rinse-repeat-ride:
we shake ourselves dry
as trees shiver
against flickering skies
unsettling
’til August’s end.
